What Would Happen If Your Porn Viewing Went Public?

What you watch on porn sites might not be as anonymous as you’re hoping it is. It’s a terrifying thought, isn’t it? People might be able to see your details next to the type of porn you watch and how often you watch it… or that is what Vice’s investigation seems to suggest.

We all go incognito or use private browsing when we’re going to have a cheeky wank. It stops the sites you look at from showing up in your history and leading to an awkward conversation with your partner… but every time you use it you get a warning that it won’t hide your browsing from your internet service provider or from the websites that you actually visit.

So all it does is stop your partner from seeing your favourite lesbian threesome porn videos… but Vice think that we aren’t as safe as we think we are. What do they think will happen, and what would it mean for us?

What might happen?

The Motherboard science and technology channel of Vice seem to be under the impression that anyone who has watched porn in 2015 might have their viewing history exposed with their name attached to it. How do they know what you’ve been watching? This is where it gets a little technical.

While incognito mode means your browsing history is not saved on your computer, you will still leave traces of what you’ve been up to all over the internet. Basically, every computer leaves its own “footprint” when you visit a website.

We often hear about hacking attempts, and while the successes are still quite rare, when they do happen they certainly make the news. Look at the fappening last year, where Apple’s iCloud was hacked and hundreds of celebrity nudes were shared across the internet. Celebs like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, and Kaley Cuoco fell victim to the hack, and their sexy snaps spread like wildfire across the internet.

Sure, you might not think it is such a bad thing. After all, the hack was named the fappening for a reason, as it is without a doubt what every single person around the world was doing when they “accidentally stumbled” onto the pictures. Yet it does make you think that perhaps your browsing isn’t as safe as you’re thinking it is… especially if hackers get their hands on the data.

Public scandal

Obviously, if it did happen it would cause a huge public scandal. Not only would you be able to see what others have been watching, but they would also be able to see what you’ve been wanking of to. It would be, as the Independent says, “the biggest internet privacy scandal since nude celebrity photos were leaked last year”.

Vice’s investigation led them to believe that this is a real possibility, and put their findings to the sites themselves to see how likely it would be to happen.

They found that a huge 88% of the top 500 porn sites actually have storage for third party elements on them to track users. However, if this information were to be released then it wouldn’t only cause problems for the victims, but the porn sites themselves would definitely lose business as a result of the data leak.

While there is the fear that maybe hackers will release our dirty secrets online, Vice have said that hackers would actually “be more likely to sell the credit card information than release it online for no gain.”

Worst case scenario

The worst case scenario in this situation is that data brokers would release the information. While we all know about hackers and the things they can achieve, they do things primarily for their own gain. Data brokers tend to work in different ways.

For a start, data brokers aren’t actually governed by laws, and so aren’t being told what they can and can’t do with the data they receive from websites. While hackers can get information about membership to porn sites, data brokers will track your browsing habits to pass on to third parties.

Vice imagines that what will happen is the information about our browsing will be collated together to create a new website. This website would, theoretically, “[allow] you to search anybody by email or Facebook username and view their porn browsing history”.

But honestly… would anyone really care about what you are looking at? Yes, porn sites often have a “share to Facebook” or “post to Twitter” button, which absolutely should not be there, but would anyone actually care if it was revealed that you watch porn?

Everybody wanks

There are people out there who insist that they have never masturbated in their life. A friend of mine, throughout college and University, said he just didn’t do it and had no interest in it. As you might imagine, I didn’t (and still don’t) believe him. The reality is that everyone does it. While we might not all admit to it, we will stick our hands in our pants and have a quick play to see what happens.

The same can be said about porn. There are so many different kinds of porn out there that there is bound to be something we enjoy and will watch on a regular basis, so a website showing that would just be confirming that everyone faps.

Honestly, would people even use the website if it existed? Would you want to risk searching a friend’s name and seeing what sort of things they watch when they’ve got a hard on? I certainly wouldn’t! There are some things that should just stay private, and searching to find out about people’s porn viewing habits is just a little weird and unusual. If you can’t talk about it with them open and honestly, you aren’t ready to find out what they watch.

I will quite happily declare that I enjoy amateur porn and lesbian porn. If this website happens and my name appears on it, that is what it will say. Will anyone care? Not really. What do you think about this potential security issue? Does it need addressing immediately, or will people not care about the kind of porn others watch? Let us know by visiting the Escort Ireland forum or by posting in the comment box below.

Lara Mills is a writer who has four years of sex industry expertise behind her. Since she entered the adult industry, she has worked on the Escort Advertising forums, before moving into her current role three years ago.

Since then she has gained a fine reputation with her blogs on sex advice, sexual health and amusing news stories from around the globe. She is also a campaigner for the rights of sex workers from all over the world.

In her spare time, Lara keeps herself active by going running, and is something of a film buff. She also loves to go travelling.

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